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- Evidence Denied to Minnesota Investigators
- The Legal Theory Behind Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction
- The Civil Rights Division Was Excluded
- A Second Shooting, Days Later
- Minnesota’s Response
- Other States Are Watching
- Consequences for the Good Family
- The Prosecutors Who Resigned
- What Happens Next
- The Precedent Being Set
Seven days after the shooting on January 7, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on January 14, 2026, that the Justice Department had determined there is no basis to investigate the conduct of the ICE officer who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis. The FBI continues to lead the investigation into the shooting itself, and state prosecutors retain independent jurisdiction to review evidence and decide on charges. Yet Minnesota state investigators say federal officials have blocked them from accessing evidence, interviewing witnesses, or pursuing their own criminal investigation into the shooting.
The dual action raises a question that should trouble anyone who thinks states have the right to enforce their own laws. Does the federal government have the authority to both refuse to investigate a potential crime and prevent states from investigating it themselves?
For decades, federal and state authorities maintained working relationships investigating overlapping crimes—civil rights abuses, drug crimes, bribery. State officials routinely investigated federal agents’ misconduct when it occurred within state borders. The Good case suggests this cooperation is collapsing, replaced by a federal assertion that Minnesota has no role whatsoever in investigating whether an ICE agent’s actions violated state law. The implications extend far beyond Minneapolis.
Evidence Denied to Minnesota Investigators
When Renee Good was shot on January 7, 2026, standard procedure would have involved both federal and state authorities examining the evidence. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension was initially assigned to investigate—a conventional arrangement that would allow state prosecutors to determine whether state charges were appropriate.
That protocol quickly unraveled.
State authorities lack access to FBI-controlled evidence including forensic testing, autopsy findings, ballistic evidence, and other forensic analysis. State investigators have faced restrictions on accessing FBI-controlled evidence and information, including limitations on conducting independent interviews with federal agents present at the scene and accessing witness statements already collected by federal authorities.
Federal officials justified these denials by asserting that because federal agents are involved, the incident falls within exclusive federal jurisdiction. This marks a departure from established practice. After George Floyd’s death in 2020, a case involving local, not federal, officers, both state and federal authorities conducted parallel investigations. State prosecutors brought murder charges against Derek Chauvin in state court. Federal officials did not assert exclusive jurisdiction. The contrast is stark.
At the same time, the Justice Department has declined to investigate the officer’s conduct itself, and federal officials have not permitted a state investigation to take up that role.
The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension initially attempted to assume investigative responsibility but was subsequently blocked from accessing evidence controlled by federal agencies. Without access to fundamental materials, the state investigation was impossible to conduct.
The Legal Theory Behind Exclusive Federal Jurisdiction
The assertion that Minnesota lacks any jurisdiction to investigate a shooting that occurred within its borders rests on a broad reading of federal power over state power. Article VI of the Constitution establishes that federal law is the supreme law of the land, superseding conflicting state law. But the clause’s purpose and scope have been subject to careful judicial refinement over centuries.
This constitutional rule does not generally grant federal officials absolute immunity from state prosecution. It operates as a tool that decides which law wins when they clash: when federal and state law directly conflict—when state law interferes with federal functions—the rule resolves the conflict in favor of federal law. The question in the Good case is whether Minnesota’s statutes regarding murder constitute an impermissible interference with federal immigration enforcement.
The historical record is instructive. When an FBI sniper killed an unarmed woman during the Ruby Ridge standoff in the early 1990s, Idaho prosecutors charged the agent with involuntary manslaughter. While the prosecution did not ultimately go forward, the case demonstrates that state authorities initially asserted jurisdiction to investigate and charge a federal agent.
Yet the Justice Department’s actions in the Good case suggest it is asserting a version of immunity far more expansive than courts have previously allowed.
Federal officials in the Good case are acting to prevent a state investigation before it starts, rather than defending against prosecution after charges are brought. Ordinarily, if an ICE agent believes state charges would infringe on federal authority, the agent or the federal government could raise that argument in federal court after charges are filed. A federal judge would examine whether the agent acted lawfully within the scope of federal duties.
What has not previously been attempted—or at least not on this scale—is federal officials blocking investigations before charges are even filed.
The Civil Rights Division Was Excluded
A particularly striking aspect of the federal response: the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the agency normally tasked with investigating potential violations by law enforcement, was explicitly excluded from any role in the Good case. This breaks dramatically with historical practice and raises questions about whether the “no basis for investigation” determination was made by the proper authorities using standard procedures.
A Second Shooting, Days Later
Days after the initial determination that there was no basis for federal investigation into Renee Good’s death, another shooting occurred in Minneapolis involving ICE agents. An ICE officer shot a man in the leg during an attempted arrest.
The response to the second shooting followed a pattern similar to the Good case: federal officials characterized the incident as justified self-defense by law enforcement, and the FBI assumed investigative authority.
But the second incident revealed something different in the state response. The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said it would independently investigate the second shooting despite having been blocked from the first investigation. This suggests that state officials may be attempting to reassert investigative authority after recognizing the implications of the Good case.
Minnesota’s Response
Confronted with federal obstruction, Minnesota officials and state-level legal authorities have begun exploring multiple strategies to reassert state investigative authority and challenge federal assertions of exclusive jurisdiction.
Attorney General Keith Ellison has launched multiple initiatives. Most significantly, on January 15, 2026—the day after the federal “no basis for investigation” determination—Ellison set up a portal for Minnesota residents to report impacts of federal actions, including those of the Department of Homeland Security. Ellison has also said his office is conducting an independent investigation separate from any federal authorities—a direct assertion of concurrent state jurisdiction.
Minnesota and the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking to end Operation Metro Surge, the massive deployment of ICE agents to the Minneapolis area. This litigation provides a mechanism through which state authorities can challenge federal assertions of authority in the courts.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty has established an independent evidence portal to collect information about the Good shooting from community members who witnessed the incident or possess relevant information. The portal has reportedly received substantial submissions, indicating that community members are willing to cooperate with state authorities even as federal officials block formal state investigative processes.
Legal strategies Minnesota is employing rest on a fundamental assertion: that the state has concurrent jurisdiction to investigate crimes occurring within its borders, and that federal assertions of exclusive jurisdiction contradict established constitutional principles.
Other States Are Watching
The Good case is not occurring in isolation but rather as part of a broader pattern of federal assertions of exclusive authority that other states are beginning to challenge.
Oregon has moved forward with proposed legislation designed to limit federal authority in certain areas, including measures addressing federal immigration enforcement activities and officer identification requirements. States including Michigan, New York, Washington, Tennessee, Illinois, and Massachusetts are considering similar bills that would assert state authority over aspects of law enforcement previously assumed to be exclusively federal. California has enacted the nation’s first anti-masking law applicable to federal law enforcement agents, creating penalties for violations, though the federal government has challenged this statute in court.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul has raised concerns that Illinois’ lawsuit against federal actions may clash with the constitutional rule that says federal law overrides state law when they conflict. Yet the fact that multiple state officials are simultaneously asserting state authority and challenging federal claims of exclusivity suggests a nationwide development in how states perceive their relationship to federal power during a period of aggressive federal enforcement expansion.
Consequences for the Good Family
For Renee Good’s family, the dispute over who may investigate raises questions of accountability that go beyond legal procedure. The family has hired private lawyers to conduct their own investigation.
Romanucci & Blandin, the same law firm that represented George Floyd’s family, has been retained by Good’s family to pursue claims and to conduct an independent investigation into the circumstances of her death. The family’s statement emphasizes that they are seeking “transparency” and answers about how their daughter, a mother of three, came to be fatally shot by a federal agent.
The investigation conducted by private lawyers operates under different constraints than a prosecution. Getting evidence from the federal government in a lawsuit is complicated, expensive, and often incomplete due to federal claims that certain documents are secret or protected. The family will likely bear substantial costs in depositions, expert witnesses, and court proceedings. Evidence that might be easily accessible in a prosecution—autopsy results, forensic reports, officer personnel files—may be obtained only through protracted legal battles in the context of a lawsuit.
A private investigation and lawsuit cannot provide certain forms of accountability that prosecution can achieve. A prosecution can result in charges, conviction, and incarceration. A lawsuit can result in monetary damages but not in punishment. For a family seeking accountability for what they believe to be an unjustified killing, the difference is substantial.
The Prosecutors Who Resigned
In the immediate aftermath of the federal government’s decision to decline investigating the Good shooting and to block a state investigation, multiple senior prosecutors in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota said they were resigning their positions.
At least six federal prosecutors resigned, including individuals who had led major fraud and rights prosecutions in Minnesota. Among the departing prosecutors was Assistant U.S. Attorney Melinda Williams, who led the sex trafficking prosecution of Anton Lazzaro, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Calhoun-Lopez, who led prominent gang racketeering trials. According to reporting on the resignations, the prosecutors left over internal disagreements about the federal probe into the Good shooting and the decision to exclude the Civil Rights Division and state investigators.
A group of thirty-three former federal prosecutors in Minnesota—many of whom had served during Republican administrations—issued an open letter to the Trump administration requesting reconsideration of the decision to exclude Minnesota authorities from the investigation. These former prosecutors, collectively representing decades of experience in federal law enforcement, argued that state-federal cooperation on sensitive investigations has been standard practice in Minnesota for decades and that excluding state authorities breaks from established norms.
What Happens Next
As of mid-January 2026, the legal and political situation remains unresolved, with Minnesota authorities pursuing multiple avenues to either challenge federal assertions of exclusive jurisdiction or build a state-level case despite federal interference.
Minnesota’s most direct legal option is to seek a court order requiring federal authorities to provide access to evidence relevant to a state investigation. Such an order would need to overcome federal claims of privilege, immunity, and national security, but precedent exists for state access to federal evidence in cases involving federal agents. The state could frame such a request around the constitutional right to see evidence that could prove innocence. If the ICE agent were ever charged by the state, he would have a constitutional right to evidence that could prove him innocent, and that evidence would need to come from the state’s investigative file.
The state could also pursue litigation directly challenging the federal effort to block a state investigation as a violation of state sovereignty or as an improper assertion of federal executive power. Such litigation would raise constitutional questions about federalism that courts have rarely addressed in this particular context: whether the federal government can stop states from investigating crimes within state jurisdiction, even when involving federal agents.
Politically, Minnesota officials could pursue congressional remedies, requesting that relevant congressional committees investigate whether federal authorities properly excluded the Civil Rights Division from the investigation and whether the jurisdictional claims comport with established law. Congress has oversight authority over federal prosecutors and could potentially condition federal funding on compliance with certain investigative protocols.
The most probable near-term outcome is continued legal conflict between federal and state authorities, with Minnesota courts potentially issuing orders regarding evidence access that federal authorities will then challenge, leading to appellate litigation that may ultimately reach federal courts.
The Precedent Being Set
The federal government’s decision to decline investigating the Good shooting while simultaneously blocking Minnesota’s investigation raises fundamental questions about how power should be divided between the federal government and states.
The federal effort to block a state investigation asserts significant exclusive federal authority in a domain traditionally shared by state and federal governments. If accepted as law, this assertion would establish a precedent that federal agents are not merely immune from state prosecution but immune from state investigation itself, a much broader protection than courts have previously allowed. The implications for state sovereignty, for accountability to ordinary citizens, and for the future of federalism are substantial.
The Good family’s private lawyers now do the work that public prosecutors normally do: investigating a potential crime and building a factual record from which accountability might theoretically be pursued.
Minnesota officials’ efforts to reassert state authority, the resignation of federal prosecutors, and the open letters from experienced prosecutors all signal that established legal norms are being challenged by the federal government’s actions.
The Good case has exposed a significant gap in doctrine, one that the courts, Congress, and legal scholars may be forced to address as federal-state conflicts multiply and competing assertions of jurisdiction escalate. For now, a mother of three is dead, and who has the authority to investigate whether her killing was justified remains in dispute.
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